


Of All The Trees That Are In The Wood

by flawedamythyst



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-01
Updated: 2012-02-01
Packaged: 2017-10-30 11:21:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/331212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flawedamythyst/pseuds/flawedamythyst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the prompt 'holly and ivy'. Watson dozes on the sofa whilst Holmes plays his violin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of All The Trees That Are In The Wood

The fire crackled in the grate and I looked up from my attempts to write down the tale of how Holmes solved the mystery of the three spinster sisters without implicating either of us as housebreakers to check that it did not need stoking.

“Don't put more wood on,” said Holmes, reading my thoughts in my glance as he so often did. “I wish to retire to bed soon.”

“What if I wanted to stay up later?” I asked.

Holmes just cocked an amused eyebrow at me, and tucked his violin under his chin. His amusement was no doubt warranted – I had been yawning over my manuscript for at least the last half hour.

He struck up a tune, and after a few moments I recognised, with some surprise, The Holly And The Ivy. It was seasonal enough, but very different to his usual repertoire. I set my pen down and settled back to listen, content to leave the sisters for another day. Settled on the sofa, it did not take very long for the warmth of the fire and Holmes's playing to tip me over into slumber.

I have always had unusually vivid dreams, although they often show me reflections of the horrors I have seen, both whilst in the Army and through Holmes's work. When they are more pleasant, they tend towards replicating scenarios I have been involved in during the day, and so there is never any great mystery to them. The dream I had as I dozed that evening was neither nightmarish nor related to anything I have ever experienced, and I have never been able to account for it.

I was surrounded by woodland, gazing at the thin blanket of snow that clung to the bare branches of the trees and the ground frost shimmering in the weak winter sunlight. Draped across my chest like a sash was a swath of ivy, tied off at my waist.

“There you are, old boy,” said a voice, and I turned to see Holmes sitting on a tree stump and smoking a pipe. He was wearing a crown of holly leaves, but in the manner of dreams this did not strike me as at all odd and neither did my own leafy adornment. “I've been waiting.”

“I'm here now,” I said.

He nodded, then knocked his pipe out on the stump and tucked it away in a pocket. “Let us wander,” he said, standing up.

We walked through the woods in the comfortable silence that we have always been able to hold between us. It was empty of all signs of human habitation, but the animal-life was plentiful. Robins flew from bush to bush around us, and one even went as far as lighting on Holmes' shoulder, where he suffered it to ride for a few minutes without comment. A small herd of deer approached through the trees and stood to watch us go past.

The day passed into night without spending longer than a few minutes at evening, and the animals drifted away until it was just Holmes, myself, and the starlight reflecting off the snow.

“Ah,” said Holmes, glancing up as we stopped under a tree. “Mistletoe.” He looked back at me. “I suppose you know what this means.”

“Of course,” I nodded, and it seemed a perfectly normal and natural tradition to share with another man. I stepped closer to him, angling my face up to his.

The kiss felt like the barest whisper, gentle and heartfelt in a way I would not have associated with Holmes. It should have felt wrong, or at least inspired some form of shame or guilt even in a dream, but instead it felt perfectly right, as if it was the only logical ending to our walk.

Holmes pulled back and smiled at me. “Such a small thing, and yet such an effect on me,” he said in a voice that sounded as if it was coming from far away.

It was at that point that Holmes – the real Holmes – woke me. He was standing over the sofa, one hand on my good shoulder whilst the other still clutched his violin bow.

“Wake up, Watson,” he said. “If you sleep there, your shoulder will not thank you in the morning.”

I was still half-asleep or I suspect I would have been flustered to wake from such a dream to see my friend so close to me. He would no doubt have been horrified if he had known what images my mind had conjured of us. 

Instead, I smiled at him, still relaxed from the peaceful nature of the dream. “I dreamt of you,” I said without considering the consequences of such a statement.

“Oh?” asked Holmes. “What did I do?”

Now I was more awake, I realised the impossibility of ever telling Holmes all that my dreaming mind had conjured. The memory of that dream-kiss would have to be buried down as deep as it would go, to a place where I could pretend it hadn't ever existed.

“We were walking through the woods,” I said.

“Ah,” said Holmes. “It sounds enthralling.”

I ignored his dry tone. “I think I shall go to bed,” I said, standing. Escaping from his presence and then returning to sleep, where hopefully other dreams would erase that one from my mind, seemed the best idea. “Good night, Holmes.”

“Good night,” he said.

As I started up the stairs to my room, I saw him reach to touch his lips gently, then turn away abruptly and reach for his violin. He started playing The Holly And The Ivy again, slower and in a lower key, which gave it an almost melancholy air. I wondered if he was endeavouring to make it more suitable as a lullaby for a man heading to bed, and smiled to myself as I continued upstairs. He was not generally the kind of man who bothered with such thoughtfulness, and that he would for me was one of the tiny ways in which he showed his regard for me, despite his often harsh words at my expense.

_Such a small thing,_ I though, remembering my dream. _And yet such an effect on me._ That sentiment could sum up a great deal of our friendship.

I went to bed content with my place in the world, despite the unsettling dream, and after Holmes had run through the carol one last time, I heard him retire as well.


End file.
